WHY AM I HERE IS A FUN QUESTION BUT YOU SHOULD REALLY BE ASKING YOURSELF WHY ARE ALL THESE ROBOTS IN MY HOUSE

Yes, sometimes it is really hard to figure out if your hobby is driving you crazy (especially if crazy was the way you started). And with that in mind I have assembled this extended monologue on what one should expect from their hobby and how to figure out if what you are doing is a) a hobby in the first place and not some bizarre complicated antisocial Star Wars nerd mating ritual or b) something really legitimately fun (but with severe psychologically damaging side effects). So for those wondering if what you do with your spare time and money is meaningful expenditure of your short time on earth or actually a symptom of mental illness, I offer you this 50 minute podcastalyptical advice. But before we start, know that if what you call a hobby involves toy robots you probably already had brain damage and that's gonna be a little tougher for me to fix with just corny jokes and pictures of 25 year old toy robots ads.

Sav-On 28 November 1985

This ad from Wilsons demonstrates how the cool thing about Cy-Kill was that if you transformed him backwards he looked even cooler.

5 comments:

Ah, Go-Bots. I had one of those when I was younger. His name was Pincher, IIRC. He met a horrible fate by having his head yanked off by a neighborhood kid.

I also have a Scooter. A friend of mine in the 90s was going to pitch the little SOB so I took pity on him and took him home. He stood with my Autobots for a good long time until I moved to WI... (Yes, I still have him; he's just in hiding. It seems I have a soft spot for pathetic mechs.)

Yeah, Weasel those GoBot monsters were awesome. The robots were scary and awesome like monsters should be and the vehicle modes really looked like some sort of monster vehicle. Monster cars were an awesome idea. Only recently have the Transformers been getting close to this idea. The Bay movie Megatron especially reminds me of the GoBot monsters.

Oh hey thanks Rob. 20 isn't bad for a show I originally intended to last 13 episodes. Or maybe it is, from a certain point of view. I started out with this vision of doing shows where I talked about one specific robot line per episode for a dozen shows. But of the 20 so far, only three have really accomplished what I intended. So I see it as a bit of a conceptual failure but it's the most fun I've ever had failing to do something. I promise that as long as I continue to fail to live up to my original vision I will keep doing them.

- I love hearing about dead U.S. chains that I never knew existed. We have some stores that no longer exists of course, many because of the juggernaut that is Wal-Mart, but it is culturally interesting to hear the difference between Canada and our southern cousins.

- I didn't realize you took pictures of the ad on the michofiche machine. I had presumed the microfiche allowed you to print each ad for a nominal price.

- Do you have a note book where you track your findings?

- I loved the info regarding unreleased RoboForce making it into an ad. Have you seen the 1985 Ideal catalog? Those are some funky robots. I now wonder if it was a print error or if they had a limited market release.

- I think if you feel pushed on how you relate to the hobby is that you are a toy detective and historian. Searching out the dark secrets and amassing proof. Truth seeker...

I've mentioned the '85 Ideal catalog and the unreleased Robo Forcers (that I believe got released) several times throughout the more RoboForce-centric posts I've done.

The ultimate listing of all the ads I've found is the version I have of the VSTP on my hard drive. There's no comprehensive physical notebook because all the handwritten notes I take concerning date and origin of the ads while I'm at the libraries are eventually discarded after I use them to name all the jpg files. So the directories on my computer serve as the master listing of everything I've found. It's easier to sort that way instead of looking through sheets of paper.